Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: September 24, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Thoughts from the Pastor…

My thoughts about the question for “Theology on Tap” (Friday, October 1 at 4 PM on Zoom) germinated from Julie Stokstad’s sermon on September 12th.  Julie spoke about Wisdom as a feminine aspect of God. This got me thinking. We talk about the Triune God; Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit has been understood as the feminine Sophia. Proverbs tells us that Wisdom was at the beginning of creation and was that very breath God sent forth to create creation out of the existing chaos.

Wisdom, understanding, and knowledge is all part of Wisdom, a feminine aspect of who we understand as God. This got me thinking. What if the question for “Theology on Tap” would be “How might expansive language for God change our faith and lives?”

One of the experiences I had with my sojourn with the Lutherans, is their liturgical prayers ended with, “…In the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.” Okay, fine. But every time? Isn’t Jesus so much more than “Savior and Lord?” What does this do to us when our image of God is limited? I would usually change the language to something more relevant and, well, expansive, for example, “The Holy One who calms the storms of our lives,” or “The One who makes all things new.”

I remember reading something explaining how God can also be referred to as a rock, and a mother hen (both being Biblical images.) The question was, as I remember, “Isn’t it great to know that God can be thought of as a rock or a mother hen?” Well, no. What is comforting is that amid anxiety fueled fear and uncertainty God is there; God is my hand hold, my toe hold, my foundation, my cornerstone.  God is also the One who gathers and comforts us in our aloneness, our disconnectedness, and when we feel ‘out there.’

I use my Lutheran experience as an example. How many names do we personally use for God? I might have maybe five go-to-names. Creating a liturgy every week helps me imagine a more expansive list of names of God. Some of us might understand God as Father and Lord. Okay, fine, but isn’t God more than that? God of Creation, Ground of my being, and Liberator.

There is something called “Holy Envy.” Holy envy is when we observe a ritual or gesture another faith tradition does that is not in our own tradition, but that we might appreciate. Muslims, for example, have a set of beads, much like a Rosary, called a “subhah.” The subhah comes in strings of 25, 33, or 100 beads. Once a day a faithful Muslim counts out and says the 100 names Muslims have for God. I like the discipline. I like the expansive list of names. By the way, the name Christians in the Middle East use for God is Allah, because that’s the Arabic name for the English word for God.

My question for “Theology on Tap” then, is “How might expansive language for God change our faith and lives?”

Peace and Wonder,

 ~ Pastor Barbara

Black Wealth Builders Update: September, 2021

Black Wealth Builders Update

 The Black Wealth Builders Fund, formerly known as the Black Homeownership Reparations Fund, is continuing to flourish at the Richmond Community Foundation.

 The fund stands at over $169,000 today. The California Association of Realtors has pledged another $50,000, which will bring us well over $200,000. We are so grateful to all at ACC and in the broader community who contributed to our fund.

 We are busy now getting the money into the community. We have made strong connections with Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services, Community Housing Development Corporation, and Guild Mortgage. Since our loans will be “layered” with a larger package, it is taking some time (and a lot of paperwork) to get our money to Black homebuyers. But we are hopeful we will make our first loans before the end of the year.

 We are gladly still accepting donations to this important cause. You can donate directly by sending a check to the Richmond Community Foundation, 3260 Blume Dr., Suite 110, Richmond, CA 94806. Indicate Black Wealth Builders Fund in the memo line. Or you can donate online: https://www.giveffect.com/campaigns/17536-black-wealth-builder-s-fund

 More information on the fund and its importance can be found on ACC’s website

 --Susan Russell

Faith Formation Team is Looking for New Members!

Faith Formation Team is Looking for New Members!

 The Faith Formation Team is looking for two or three more team members. Please consider joining us!

 What do we do? We brainstorm events to offer to the church and then make them happen - events to inspire us, to expand our spiritual lives, to educate us, and to learn from each other. One of the joys of being on this team is working closely with the Pastor.

 For instance, events from past and present:

•      Theatre parties to Berkeley Rep (to see “The Bible“ and “Becky, Nurse of Salem”) with food/drink/good talk afterwards at a local restaurant.

•      Wise Hearts, a support group that meets to share the joys and challenges of aging and retirement.

•      The biopic of writer Toni Morrison shown at a Sunday luncheon open to the public, and a reading/study of one of her stories, for Black History Month.

•      Lenten Devotionals written by ACC Members.

•      Bible study, currently Lectio Divina.

•      Poetry readings by ACC members and others (currently Poetry Hour).

•      Theology on Tap…aka conversations with the Pastor at the Junket (or via Zoom)

•      Spiritual Journeys series (interviews with ACC Members)

We have ideas for more events (e.g., an Advent retreat, starting another Wise Hearts group, etc.), but we need a few more Faith Formation Team members to make these things happen, and to re-charge the batteries of the current team. 

  If you’re interested, please talk to Pastor Barbara, either Eleanor or Nick Crump, or Helen Winters. You would be welcome to join a meeting to see if this fun team is for you.

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: September 17, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

When you are driving on say, San Pablo, Sacramento, MLK, Arlington Ave., or anywhere, do you feel the presence of God? Assuming the traffic is okay, and everyone stays in their lanes, probably not.  Whenever you’re pushing the grocery cart through the Safeway or Lucky’s it’s doubtful the presence of God is on your radar. 

 When we see the Bay from on high, we shout out a big “Wow, O God!” For me, it’s every single time, as if I’m seeing the Bay for the very first time. Or when we stand in the middle of a grove of Redwoods, or make that turn in the road when the Pacific Ocean infinitely spreads out before you, or when a Brown Pelican swoops and scoops up a fish that got too close to the surface. “Wow, O God! Fabulous are you!” And God says, “And also with you!”

 When we get married, when our children are born, when that same child comes home from college, from the armed services, from…being away; somewhere, even if it’s simply a nudge or a tickle in the back of your mind, God seems present. Somehow.

 There are those times when you find yourself in an event that is awesome and powerful and you are part of the event and…surely God is in this place. Praise be to you, O God! Then God says, “And also with you!”

What happens, though, when things go south? When even the best of us has a bad day. Not just a bad day, but a soul shattering, nerve rattling,  life changing day when your world goes upside down. To borrow a phrase from the gymnast Simone Biles, your life gets “the twisties.” Most likely, in that moment we aren’t thinking about God. God is nowhere to be seen through the windshield or even in the rearview mirror. God isn’t on the front burner or the back burner. God isn’t in the back of your mind or the tip of your tongue.  God? What God?

 Then, when it’s quiet, you sit on the side of the bed and turn out the light. It’s just you. But you know you are not alone. It’s not judgement. It’s not a list of things you should’ve done or should do. It’s just you and Presence. Holy and Divine. It’s the Embrace of Love itself that will never leave you alone. Ever.

 Peace and Wonder,

 ~ Pastor Barbara

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: September 10, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Where were you twenty years ago? I hardly remember where I was yesterday, let alone twenty years ago. There are, however, people and events that mark our lives. We remember when we got married and maybe when we got divorced. We remember when our children were born, we remember when we graduated high school and college. We remember our first bicycle, first car and our first rock concert. Our parents remembered where they when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Dad was in West Virginia installing linoleum for The Armstrong Cork and Tile Co. 

I was in the fourth grade at E Street Elementary School in San Rafael when someone entered our classroom from the hallway and whispered in the teacher’s ear. The teacher then turned to us and calmly said that the President had been shot. The big yellow buses were soon taking us home.

In January 1986 I was walking through the student lounge in Richmond Hall at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia.  There were several people gathered around the TV watching as the Challenger Space Shuttle was lifting off. I was curious, so I stopped to watch too. Within minutes the unimaginable happened.

Something amazing happens on the east coast every year as the heavy hot humid air of summer gives way to clear and cool Autumn air, as if on cue, as the calendar flips from August to September. Monday, September 11, 2001, was one such day. The sky was clear. The air was cool. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. If you looked straight up, you could see the dark of space. I had met my, then wife, at her school to set up a portable sound system for her classroom so she wouldn’t have to shout above the constant din.

I was running late to work. The car radio was set to WHYY, the public radio station out of Philadelphia. About quarter to 9 the news report said a “plane” crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I thought a “plane” as in a Cessna or Piper Cub bumped into a building. Not that big a deal. I wondered what happened on the ground though.

As I’m putting the car in park, the radio is telling me a jet liner crashed into the South Tower. I rush into work. We were all trying to get news of what was happening. Our methods were generational. Dad was tuning in the radio, I was futzing with the TV, and our two millennials were on the computer. A jet crashes into the Pentagon. Air space is shut down. Not a jet in the sky for the next three days. The South Tower collapses almost an hour after first being hit. We hear a jet crashed near Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh? What’s going on? When will this stop? What’s next? Later in the day three fighters flew low over head in formation toward New York.  

We were all stunned. 2996 people died that day. I remember talking with a truck driver a few days later. He was stuck in traffic in New Jersey heading into New York City. All he could do was helplessly sit in his truck and watch it all. And cry. Life as we knew it changed forever.

As Christians we might wonder where God might be in all this. Was this from God? Surely not. Not everything that happens is from God. What I do know is that God embraces the vulnerable, the afraid, the angry, the suffering, the wounded, the lost, and the numb. God even embraces the big burley truck driver with tears running down his cheeks. 

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau, Bridge Pastor

Council Summary for August, 2021

Council Summary for August, 2021

Council met on August 19th via Zoom. (This was a big improvement over “distant” talking around a very large table in the Social Hall, as it is easier to hear each other.)  We’re pleased to report ACC’s finances are stabilizing after our shutdowns during the pandemic. This is largely because our expenses were not as great while we were closed. Rental income, including from schools, has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.  If anyone is interested in seeing budget/finance details please see me or Randy. We’re hoping enrollment in the schools continues to improve so rents can return to normal. Jacob has been busy re-opening facility rentals with some guidance from the Re-opening Committee for Covid-19 safety protocols. We are still not fully using the facility for rentals. To clarify protocols and fees for Jacob and for renters, we’ll be developing a policy on rentals.

We’re starting to revisit Capital improvement projects that we had to put on hold in March of 2020.  We were able to proceed with the sidewalk construction because funds were already reserved.  Now we’re starting to investigate the feasibility of some re-configuration and accessibility concepts for the bathrooms off the Narthex (the infant stage of planning). If we decide to proceed with such a project, there will need to be a great deal of “logistical planning” as well as raising some additional Capital funds.   

Council is grateful to Barbara for the hard work she of planning meaningful and inspiring worship services along with the music staff, and for Jacob’s talents and hard work producing the Parishscope and other communications to the Congregation.  The Search Committee continues with interviews and reviewing candidate profiles for a Settled Minister. Council is keeping in touch with the committee’s general progress and it sounds positive at this point.  Please continue to prayerfully support the work of all those working behind the scenes to keep our Congregation and Ministry vital. 

 Linda Young,  Moderator  

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: September 3, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Next week is unusually full for me. We have an Organ Dedication on Sunday, September 12. Joe Pratt generously donated his old organ to the church. Thank you, Joe! Also, that same day, Rev. Julie Stokstad will be bringing us the word on Wisdom. I’m looking forward to hearing her thoughts on wisdom from her perspective. I’ll be here leading worship.

 I tagged that Sunday to be free from the joy of preaching because of the fullness that week holds for me. As you may, or may not, be aware, The Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) elected The Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer as their Bishop at their Synod Assembly in May. While Bp. Rohrer’s term in office began on July 1st, the installation is scheduled for Saturday, September 11.

 Here’s the thing, Bp. Megan Rohrer is the first transgender Bishop, or head of any judicatory, in any major Christian denomination. (This is as significant as when The Rev. Gene Robinson was elected as the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, back in 2004, as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion.) Originally, Bp. Rohrer’s installation was to be held at a Lutheran church in Walnut Creek, but because of the amount of people who will be attending, the service was moved to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. I am told Grace Cathedral is the largest sanctuary in the area to be able to hold this event. The press and “everybody else” will be there. This installation is a big deal.

 The day before Bp. Rohrer’s installation a “Listening Session” is scheduled to be held at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco at 4 pm. Yours truly will be on a panel with about 5 others who are transgender and clergy serving Christ’s Church. At the moment, there are a handful of us. This event is open to the public. Folks can RSVP to attend in-person here. 

 A Listening Session implies there is someone listening. Hopefully the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and anyone else with ears to hear, as Jesus might say, is listening. Except for my three years serving a Lutheran congregation, my experience has largely been in the United Church of Christ. I have found, though, that my experiences “on the ground” are very similar, if not the same, as my Lutheran trans clergy colleagues. 

 Together, we will be sharing our stories of what it is like to be trans and clergy. We will share our struggles and joys, the walls we have encountered, the walls that have already come down, what needs to happen going forward, and how none of us take “no” for an answer. I am aware my ministry is significant as I courageously create space for myself, as well as those who are coming after me.

 Like the Syrophoenician Woman might say, I too, along with everyone else, is “awesomely and wonderfully made” and how there is a place under the Sun for all of us.

 Keep being your awesome selves,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau, Bridge Pastor

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: August 27, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

Theology on Tap is the first Friday of the month which also falls on the first day of September this year. There’s no time to settle into a new month and then wonder when the first Friday is. Not this month. Boom! There’s the new month and there’s the first Friday all at the same time, all at once. Sometimes that’s how the calendar happens.

The topic for this month’s Theology on Tap is “What does ACC 2.0 look like?” This topic grew organically out of our last Spiritual Journey.  To be sure, almost every church in America is asking the same question. Indeed, our Jewish and Muslim friends are asking the same questions. It’s new territory. I mean, talk about things they didn’t teach you in seminary!

If you were to ask me why there are so many Christian denominations, my first response is the history and geography of Europe. This is not a three-minute elevator conversation. As do all immigrants, Europeans brought with them what they knew; their ways, customs, and religion and planted it here. Some communities insisted that the liturgy be spoken in their native German, or Hungarian, or Swedish tongue. By the third generation the original language from the Old World was no longer relevant. 

There is a shift in contemporary religion going on right now in the present moment. Some of us have recognized, for at least the last ten years, there is a new re-formation of the church going on even as we speak.  COVID-19 sped up the process.

I have included a link to an article from Sojourners Magazine, called “What is Church Now.”

I offer it as a starting point. An appetizer to begin the conversation. One place to start is to think about what COVID has taught us. What are the lessons learned from the last 18 months of lockdown and our use of ZOOM and YouTube?  What is the church? Who is the church?  How do we connect with others? What are our gifts we are eager to share and how do we share those gifts? What is the role of the building and grounds? How can the church be relevant in the third decade of the twenty-first century?  I know, more questions than answers. Questions are where we begin. Questions are the seeds of discovery. Questions are the seeds of our faith.

I don’t expect our conversation about what ACC 2.0 looks like to result in any definitive answers, but who knows? My hope is that we begin a conversation about what’s next for Arlington Community Church as we enter a healthy and respectable dialogue with one another. It is a very important conversation the wider church and healthy congregations are having. There is a place at the table for us to join the conversation. 

If I don’t see you at church first, I’ll see you at Theology on Tap next Friday at 4 pm. 

Peace and wonder,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau, Bridge Pastor

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: August 20, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

When I was going through my year-long Clinical Pastoral Care as a resident chaplain, my friend James shared with the class a wisdom teaching from the Buddhist tradition. The teaching goes something like this:

Thinking your cupboards and refrigerator is empty, you plan on stopping at the grocery store on the way home after work for some groceries for dinner. Your day seemed longer and more difficult than usual and by the end of the day you’re tired and your feet hurt. There is just no energy for standing in the checkout line. You drive past the grocery. You just want to be home.

When you finally get home, you begin to get hungry. It’s dinner time after all. Thinking there’s nothing to eat, you start poking around the kitchen anyway. In the back of the freezer you find some chicken, and some frozen veggies.  There’s a half a bag of rice in the pantry. In the cupboard you find some parsley, sage rosemary, and thyme. And voila! You had the ingredients for dinner all along.

The moral of the story is that each of us has what we need for any given moment. We just need to learn to poke around inside our own internal cupboards to access our emotions, thoughts, feelings, and inner wisdom as we move through the various moments and seasons of our lives.

Indeed, this is a great teaching from the Buddhist tradition. But then, as I’m reading about Pelagius, an early Christian theologian from Scotland, I came across the following story about Pelagius from the late 300s.

“A young woman, named Celantia, asked Pelagius for a rule of life. “Tell me how to live,” she begged. Pelagius replied, “Don’t ask me, the source of such a rule is inside your own heart.”*

Why hadn’t I known this until now? This same wonderful Buddhist insight has also been in our own Christian cupboards and pantries all along.

There seems to be some universal wisdom about our hopes and dreams, joys and sadness, fears and courage, words and deeds, ethics and morals, and our own personal truths all residing in the center of our own being. The place where Christ resides is where our truth resides.

Peace and wonder,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau, Bridge Pastor

*“Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul,” by John Phillip Newell. (page 37)

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor: August 13, 2021

Thoughts from Our Bridge Pastor

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau

There are two events coming up sponsored by the Faith Formation Team. By the time this comes out in the Parishscope, the first event might already be in the rearview mirror. But then again there’s always next month.

On Friday, the 13th, Poetry Night will meet, followed a week later on August 20 by the Lectio Divina. Both will be at 4 PM and on Zoom. Look for the links elsewhere in the Parishscope, ACC Events, and the web-site. I’m thinking there might be a few of you wondering about the connection Poetry Hour has with our faith. Well, I’m glad you asked because there is a connection. Allow me to connect the dots.

Our faith does not exist solely from what we read and experience within the pages of the Bible. To be sure, as Christians, the Bible has a great deal of influence about who we are as people of faith. (Sacred scripture is also important to our Jewish and Muslim cousins.) There is a lot of Biblical imagery, morals, ethics, and wisdom that are very important to my daily living.

We moderns, have done a number on our Sacred Word though. Since the Enlightenment we have treated the Bible the way we might treat an engineering text book, or an accountant’s binder full of government updates. We look at every word and we want to say that word means this and this word means that.

Personally, I find great value in Biblical word studies. My issue with heretofore Biblical scholarship is translation and interpretation. Finding out that a word has been mistranslated will send me into a rant and a whole new and more inclusive interpretation. While there is some value there that’s not the only way to do Biblical interpretation.

The Bible was written from the heart. Their inspired by God heart. The Biblical writers wrote from their human experience, embracing those places where the whole spectrum of humanity connects with the holy and divine, and where the holy and divine embraces humanity. It’s there at the junction of God and us where Biblical interpretation is at its best. Whether their words were prose or poetry they wrote with the heart of a poet.

According to Pelagius (360 – 420) there are (at least) five areas we find sacredness: the human soul, nature, spiritual practice, wisdom, and compassion. Pelagius begins with the human soul for that is the cradle where our awareness to all other sacredness begins and resides.  

Both, Poetry Hour and Lectio Divina are designed to stir the soul and shake out the cobwebs. Poetry speaks from the heart to the heart. It reminds us we have a heart and soul that were first declared very good by God. Our heart and soul is that place where we meet God’s Original Grace and Original Blessing showered upon us. It’s the place where God and me and we connect. Our souls are stirred and a sacred grin comes upon our souls as we meet God yet once again.

Peace and wonder,

Rev. Barbara K. Peronteau